derGespenst wrote:I've always felt that after Alamein, Rommel was finished as a competant commander, probably a case of battle-fatigue, and this "strategy" is more evidence of that. No defensive line, however strong, was going to stop the Allies forever. They just had too much stuff. this is as bad as deploying 21st Panzer astride a river in Normandy or thinking he could counterattack the beaches in the face of naval gunfire. He should have retired after he took Tobruk.
I agree totally and would even go further than that. El-Alamein is something that he has to take the MAIN responsibility for. Not only was the logistics hopelessly inadequate for staying in the offensive, so close to the allied counteroffensive, but it seems like Rommel never had any strategic vision that matched his tactical role. If his "vision" was to link up with the japanaese in India, that is fine, but his realities on the ground did NOT put him in a position to use his forces in accordance with that.
His failure to capture Tobruk the first time is another thing that leaves his legacy more than questionable, but this goes more into the typical inability of german forces to capture defended cities. He should have shortened his supply lines, held his advance and never crossed the Egyptian border they way his strategic situation was. This was not France-1940 where he led unstoppable Pz-gruppen and his inability to adopt his tactics after the strategic situation makes me question if he even should have commanded much more than a division to begin with.
Just Imagine Rauss, or Von Mannstein in Afrika in 1941 instead of Rommel. They might certainly not have put up as flamboyant offensives, but you can guarantee they would have put up much more tenacious and stratgically sound defenses.
-Anger and resentment over 1919 was forever hijacked and destroyed by political parasites and cowards-